Chicoma Mountain is the highest peak in the Jemez Mountains, northwest of Santa Fe in northern New Mexico. The range is actually the remnants of an ancient volcano that once may have stood as much as 20,000 feet high, and blew itself apart over many eruptions many millions of years ago. The Jemez Mountains are arranged in a rough circular shape, with its main peaks, ridges and canyons arranged in a radial pattern, all emanating away from its center and ancient caldera, the grand Valles Caldera. Volcanic activity never really ended: many peaks within the Valles Caldera are ‘upthrust’ domes of lava, literally blobs of lava that rose to the surface then cooled, forming huge rounded summits sprinkling the gigantic caldera, which measures roughly 10-12 miles in diameter. Although large eruptions of ash and lava are extremely unlikely today, the area still exhibits its volcanic past, with many natural hot springs and seeps throughout the region. The landscape is stunningly beautiful: the Valles Caldera, for 140 years a private ranch with its roots as a 17th-Century Spanish Land Grant, is now protected as the Valles Caldera National Preserve, managed by the United States Federal Government. Nearby Bandelier National Monument exhibits some of the amazing canyon and cliff topography of the area, while much of the rest of the region falls under BLM, state, Indian and private control.

Chicoma Mountain itself rises to the north of the Valles Caldera, visible from the city of Espanola about a half-hour north of Santa Fe. Access into the range is via Santa Fe National Forest Road 144, which starts in Espanola off of highway US-84, just north of Fairview Road, one of the main routes through downtown Espanola. Forest Road 144 runs up, across and down the northern tier of peaks of the Jemez Mountains; Chicoma Mountain is roughly 25 miles from Espanola along this road. At its highest, the road reaches 10,800 feet elevation on the northern flank of Chicoma Mountain, roughly a mile from the summit. Quite ironically, a hike to the summit of Chicoma is fairly short, if one starts at this 10,800-foot point. This was my plan. I was on the end of a six-day tour of New Mexico in which I had climbed five other peaks, saving mighty Chicoma for last. I viewed Chicoma as a fine way to end the trip, with a short hike of maybe a couple of hours all that was needed to gain the top. I came into the area from the north, after a camp and hike in the Sangre de Cristo Range south of Taos. I arrived in Espanola about noon, but I chose not to drive toward Chicoma just yet. Storm clouds had developed, a result of the monsoon pattern in this area this time of year. Instead, I killed some time in Espanola and Santa Fe, playing tourist for a few hours. Around 4:30 p.m. the big storms seemed to be breaking up, so I started north and west, planning to drive all the way in to Chicoma and find a spot to camp for the night.

The drive up Forest Road 144 is scenic, and the dirt and gravel road is well maintained, other than some washboarding. From Espanola the road works its way up some hills to top out on a broad elevated bench of pinon and juniper woodland. It then turns north then west again as it contours across the south face of Santa Clara Peak. The road is good here, but narrow. I concentrated more on the driving than the views. Roughly half-way in, the road improves (loses the washboarding) and enters into higher-elevation forest, and Chicoma Mountain is often in view for the remaining 12-13 miles. The road twists and turns on the east slopes of Chicoma and finally achieves its highpoint, as mentioned before, at 10,800 feet directly north of Chicoma’s summit. I pulled into a small pullout near a cattle-grate and fence at the Forest Boundary, and parked. It was 6:00 p.m., and the storms had nearly cleared completely out! This was unexpected as they usually linger into the night. I immediately considered hiking the peak now, then returning to my truck to camp. I figured I had sunlight until about 8:30 p.m. at the latest, and the hike shouldn’t take me more than 90 minutes at my usual pace. Conditions were magnificent and I was drawn to the idea of a late-afternoon/dusk hike of the peak. Obviously, I was taking a chance by starting so late. Furthermore, there is no trail from where I started. It’s a straight-shot up about 750 vertical feet of heavily forested slope, but only about a mile. My pack consisted of some water (two 500 ml bottles), no food, a jacket, a map with waypoints, my GPS, a compass, a flashlight, some extra batteries, my cell phone and my wallet. I started up the slope at 6:25 p.m.

At first I followed the fence line, figuring it might go all the way to the top and offer an easy navigation device, but the fence stopped after just a few feet (the fence marks the boundary between the National Forest and a private land grant). I continued straight up the slope. It was steep at first but then the gradient lessened. There were some sections of downed trees and even one small meadow, but by and large it was heavy dense forest cover the whole way up. Toward the top I found some small blue ribbons tied to tree branches. Interesting… these seemed to go where I was headed so I followed them. Sure enough they led me right to the top. By 7:00 p.m. I had summitted Chicoma Mountain, entering onto its bare summit and walking to the large cairn at its very top. The sun was low in the west, and it lit up everything in a beautiful dusky glow. I didn’t stay long – just long enough for a photograph. I tagged the cairn then immediately turned right around to retrace my steps. I was confident I could find the ribbons again, and in my haste I didn’t take a compass bearing.

Walking down the slope I didn’t immediately find the blue ribbons, but even then I was not too concerned. Looking at the map the road cuts all the way across the north slope of Chicoma – all I had to do was descend pretty much on any north bearing until I hit the road. Even if I came to the road separate from my truck, it would be an easy task to walk back to it anyway, so I was not too concerned; I had a lot of “fudge” room. The only rule I had was to not veer too far west (my left) on the hike down, since I could potentially find myself deep in some canyons away from the road if I went that way. So I descended, walking briskly down the slopes and making very good time. I had dropped about 400 feet in 15 minutes when I came upon some cliffs. These were unexpected, so I adjusted my route and veered to my right – east – or so I thought. As yet I had not taken a bearing of my travel and was assuming – incorrectly as it turned out – that I was trending mostly north when in fact I had been trending mostly east the whole way down. It was only about 7:20 p.m. and I still had about another hour of usable daylight left, so I wasn’t too worried but I was starting to get concerned. Nothing was looking quite right, and I kept running into steep rocky cliffs, constantly forcing me to re-adjust my track. In doing so I almost always veered right, each time thinking I was veering more easterly when in fact I was veering more to the southeast.

There came a point where I knew I was way off track. I knew I should have already hit the road by now, given the amount of time I was on the descent. I stopped at one of the many cliffs and brought out my GPS to get a reading. In the thick tree cover it takes awhile for my GPS to latch onto the satellites … and I grew impatient. I didn’t give the unit time to locate our position. Instead, I gambled, and decided to ‘just get moving’, figuring the road had to be down there, not too far away. I scampered down more slopes. In the waning light I often thought I saw the road, when in fact it would be a huge downed tree when I got to it. Very disappointing. Now I was genuinely worried. I had lost on my gamble; the road was nowhere close. There was too little daylight left to make a break for the road now, so I sat down and cooled my jets for awhile. I was lost and it was getting dark. It was very dusky by now, and true black of night would be here within minutes. There was no moon tonight, so I could not count on its light to help me.

If you are thinking of words like “moron” and “horse’s-ass”, that is fine. In the ensuing time I called myself worse, utterly disgusted with myself for getting so far off track on such a simple land-nav problem. The hike should not have been this challenging! How in the world had I gotten so far off track? I took the time to take stock of my situation, and to calm myself down. I also tried my phone – and had a signal, believe it or not! I decided to call 911 and get ahold of New Mexico Search and Rescue, and let them know of my situation – basically, put them on stand-by. I brought out my GPS and after 10 minutes or so it locked onto a position. I read this to dispatch. I knew from my experience in SAR that the usual time from a call in to 911 and rescuers on the scene can be as much as 4-5 hours, so I wasn’t expecting anything immediately. I also placed myself on my map, and to my surprise saw that I had worked my way down many hundreds of feet into the steep Gallina Creek Canyon, south of Chicoma Mountain. I was 1.9 miles to the southeast in a direct bearing from my truck (about 1 mile southeast of the summit), and over 1,100 feet in elevation below! I had descended nearly 1,900 feet below the summit! I was just disgusted, plain and simple, at myself. I decided to not move at all. As total darkness descended, I relaxed on a slope beneath a tree, and calmed myself down as best I could. While at no time I never actually “panicked”, I know in retrospect I was working purely on adrenaline and without too much logical, calm thought.

I made the call to SAR at 8:30 p.m., and for most of the next hour did nothing. I sat in my one spot for fifteen minutes, then out of boredom, would walk a few feet in a random direction and find another clearing to sit in. A small shower passed through but it was light and I stayed dry. Otherwise the sky was clear and full of stars. The wind was still and temperatures still comfortable, about 50 degrees. I thought of my wife Beth. I assessed myself and I was fine physically other than having my head up my ass. By 9:30 I figured I might as well do something constructive. The GPS had pegged my position, and I had a waypoint for the road which I had entered previously, and it showed I was just 0.8-mile from it, on a northeast bearing (i.e. I was southwest of the road here). This was well apart from my truck, but I was heartened that the road was closer than I thought. I brought out the compass – hey, there’s a good idea – and adjusted it for magnetic north, and followed this bearing as best I could. It meant going up slope, fair enough. I walked for about 15 minutes, and when I was in another clearing, stopped to recheck my GPS. It now read that I was 0.76 miles from the road, on the same bearing. Cool! I had knocked off 4/100s of a mile, but at least this was progress. I continued with this for about another 45 minutes, by which time I had worked my way up the slope a few hundred feet, still about 0.6 miles from the road. Then, my phone rang.

New Mexico SAR had called me – had been trying for the past hour, in fact – and I spoke with the incident commander (IC), Peter Dickson, who was based in Los Alamos. I told him my situation and what I was doing. I gave him my current GPS position and he found it on his map. He told me to keep doing what I was doing, that I was on a correct path. The general idea was to hike up to the main ridge, then turn right (east) and walk it to the road. He also told me no one had yet been called out, which was what I expected. Since I was not injured and had correct gear and know-how, I should be fine for the time being, there being no reason yet to call everyone out. We agreed to keep the status quo until I reached the road, at which time I would call him to update him. It was about 10:30 p.m. when we talked.

Heartened by the conversation and at least knowing I was on a correct path, I found some energy and walked pretty much right up the remaining 300 feet to gain the ridge. Now to turn right (east) and walk it down to the road. The map shows an old pack trail here but it was obliterated years ago in a storm after massive numbers of trees fell onto the trail. When I hit the ridge I was now just 0.4 miles from the road, and it should have been easy to maintain the ridge, but this was easier said than done. The entire way down I had to crawl up and over, down and under, or walk around endless downed trees. In doing so I was constantly getting myself off the route, and the ridge was so broad that it wasn’t easy visually to be sure I was still on the ridge. Whenever I had doubts I trended to my left – north – so that the ridge and higher ground was to my right. This was to avoid a repeat of my error in which I kept trending right off the ridge and down into Gallina Canyon. The obstacle course of trees was extremely tiring, and it took me two solid hours to walk out the remaining 0.4 mile. Then, with much surprise, I pushed aside some foliage and there was the road – hooray! It was 12:30 a.m. and I lay down to relax, completely spent. I tried to call Peter but had no luck raising a signal. The GPS showed I was still about 1.7 miles on a direct-line bearing to my truck, but the road meandered quite a bit, meaning a realistic 2.5-mile hike at least. What other choice did I have? I got moving, hiking toward my truck.

I was so tired from all this, and also out of water by this time, that I moved very slow, and staggered left and right like I was drunk. After maybe 10 minutes my phone beeped, letting me know a message had been received. I was in one of those random spots where I had a signal again so I called Peter. He agreed to come up, but warned it would be a good two hours at least to get there. I thanked him a hundred times and we hung up. I started moving again. I can’t explain how much it meant to me to know that at the very least I had someone coming up to assist, even if it was a couple hours down the line. I continued to walk slowly up the road. The flashlight wasn’t needed here. I turned it off and after a few minutes to allow my eyes to adjust, I had just the barest amount of light – starlight really – to make out the road. I found if I looked up, generally at the tops of the trees ahead of me, the peripheral vision in my eyes was better able to view the road than if I looked directly at the road. There was no danger of falling off any cliffs here, and if I did trend off the road, I would know because I would start walking into rocks and berms. I went slow and I took many breaks, many for 20 minutes at a time. Finally, at one break curiosity got me and I looked on my GPS for a distance to my truck. I was shocked when it read 0.04 mile! In other words, 200 feet. I couldn’t see anything ahead and my flashlight didn’t show anything (my truck is black, by the way). But I brought out my keys and pressed the unlock button on the key fob, and my truck’s light lit up! Holy crap there it was, I had made it! As beat as I was I ran the last few hundred feet to it. It was now 2:45 a.m., and I was now back to my truck, 7 hours and 45 minutes after summitting Chicoma and over 8 hours since starting the hike. I had complete provisions so I drank up, ate up and changed into drier, warmer clothing. I was so happy!

Peter came rumbling up at 3 a.m. exactly. I was elated to see him, so very happy and thankful that he had come up to assist me. I apologized for my stupidity on the mountain and he would have none of that. He explained he did the same thing years ago himself. He was extremely nice and we spent about a half-hour together. I gave him a full account of what I had done, filled out some paperwork, did a quickie self-medical check (lots of dinged shins with blood, as I discovered). Once he was satisfied I was good to go where I was, he got moving back down the road. Although I had essentially performed a self-rescue, I must give considerable thanks to him and his team for being on stand-by to help. It was knowing that I had them in a worst-case scenario that I think helped me summon the energy for the hike up the last few miles to my truck. I was very nearly convinced I didn’t have the energy to do it.

I stayed up until almost 4 a.m., partly out of adrenaline I think. I slept for about 3 hours in the bed of my truck, by which time it was daylight again and some other vehicles were rumbling up the road. I decided to pack up and drive down the road into Espanola. There, I stopped for a breakfast and texted Peter I was down off the mountain. I also received a text from Beth, who reported that she had stayed up the whole night, working off nervous energy for some unknown, unidentifiable reason. I texted that I was safe, down, and “had a story to tell”. My cell phone had no more juice afterwards. I spent the day driving about 400 miles, eventually spending the night in St. Johns, Arizona. There (and after I had re-juiced my phone), I called my wife to tell her the whole story, and she told me hers, and that she had had some gut feeling “something wasn’t right”. I told her that I had concentrated my thoughts on her when darkness fell, that it had calmed me a lot and that it may have created some extra-sensory connection between us, separated by 500 miles. I very much believe that she stayed up on my behalf, offering me energy, love and support through this inchoate channel, and that it had a direct bearing on my getting out okay. I honestly believe this to be true.

Back home in Chandler the next day I gave another full account. By this time all the adrenaline had worn off, and I had a long proper night’s sleep too. All the little injuries were now obvious: two big gashes on my legs from the tree branches, a big blister on my foot, and pulled muscles in my left quadriceps muscle. The emotion came forth and I broke down, realizing now just how lucky I had been and how lucky I am now.

I freely admit that I made very serious errors in judgment, which I should know better. This experience was humbling and chastening to me. I am not proud that I got lost, but feel fortunate I had the proper tools and know-how to use them to extract myself. I can’t properly explain just how this has affected me, for on the most base emotional level I feel like a changed man. I feel like I was taught some lessons, and given the hiking equivalent of a behind-the-shed ass-whupping. What follows are my thoughts of my hike:

• Obviously I should have taken a bearing immediately when on the summit coming down. I have always had a strong sense of dead reckoning, which I have grown reliant on over the years. But in this case, it failed me completely. In the thick forest all visual cues were the same, and my gut led me astray.

• Calm down! I should have stopped sooner, when I realized something was not right, and been patient about pegging my location and taking a bearing. As I said above, I gambled and stayed moving, against better sound judgment. At the time I thought I was acting rationally. I didn’t feel like I was in any panic but in retrospect I see that I had to have been in some form. How else can I explain that I descended 1,900 feet (when my truck was just 750 feet down the slope)? How else can I explain that I did this for over an hour? I wish I could view myself in 3rd person – I think I would see a man essentially ‘running’ down the slope, hoping for the road but really having no idea what he was doing other than hoping he’d get lucky.

• Trust the compass! I was so shocked to finally see where I ended up on the map. So much so that at first I refused to believe it. I felt the GPS was in error. The compass pointed properly but I didn’t believe it at first either. Even after knowing I was lost my gut still felt I should head ‘that way’, the direction I had been traveling. I had to consciously force myself to abandon my gut feeling here and trust the compass. The compass has no brain, it never lies. It just knows north.

• It is so easy to lose bearings in the trees. Even when I followed a bearing, I would sometimes correct to get around a downed tree or rock, then find that I was now hiking literally 180 degrees off my intended bearing. I had turned myself around. Even when conscious of my need to stay on track, it was so easy to get off track.

• Be calm and rational. In retrospect, I had a lot going for me: I had all the proper gear items, I was not injured, and the weather was pretty good. I had many years experience in the mountains on my own, plus seven years with Maricopa County SAR, so I had all the right training. I just had to calm myself down and use it.

I write this about a week after the fact, after some time to think about it (and assuredly I will be thinking of this for a long, long time). The forest was kind to me. Whatever big animals lurk there left me alone. Bear was my only concern, but I was making so much noise I think I scared off every bear in the county. I had a pristine night sky with billions of stars and a few meteorites (the Perseids). I had the competence of Peter Dickson and NMSAR at my back, and I had the love and support of my wife carrying me through this ordeal.

My infinite thanks to Peter and NMSAR, and infinite love to my wife.